Vancouver Riot

10:44 am

Fri September 2, 2011

Booze, thugs and 155,000 people: Vancouver riot examined

In this image taken from the published review of the Vancouver, B.C., riots, a mass of 155,000 people can be seen gathered to watch the Canucks play the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup final. The report says the crowd got too big too fast.

John Furlong, Co-Chair of the 2011 Vancouver Riot Review. He was also the CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

Craig McCullochKPLU

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Blame massive crowding, alcohol and inadequate police response as the main causes of the recent Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver, B.C.

An exhaustive review of the riot sponsored by the Province of British Columbia, City of Vancouver and Vancouver Police Board was made public yesterday.

The review finds that on June 15th, an estimated 155,000 people gathered near the public library in downtown Vancouver to watch the game. A jumbo screen there could be easily seen four blocks away.

The crowd was considerably more than the area can physically handle and people arrived earlier than expected. The review says this prevented police from initiating proper crowd control.

A lot of drinking

Too much rampant and open alcohol consumption took place and because of the large number of people and small venue, it could not be stopped by authorities. The review also found police were in an impossible situation, despite 928 officers eventually being deployed.

One of the review’s Co-Chairs is John Furlong, who led Vancouver’s Olympic committee. He blames drunk thugs as the main cause of the riot.

“The night was fueled by alcohol and there were people who came downtown intent to cause harm and do damage and they did it,” he said. “Alcohol gave them the bravado and courage to do the kind of things that they did that night.”

The review also says there is no reason why Vancouver cannot host such an event in the future, with better planning.